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A five-year-old industry advocacy organization was urged yesterday by a small but influential group from widespread elements of the national commercial fishing community to muscle up in an attempt to tell its story loudly, clearly and with effect. Jim Ruhle, president of the Commercial Fishermen of America, said the board would meet today and announce its decision. A North Carolina-based fisherman from a nationally prominent fishing family who also serves on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, Ruhle brought the board to Gloucester for what he described as a crossroads decision, whether to disband or expand.

His brother Phil, a gear innovator and industry reformer who had served on the New England Fishery Management Council, was lost last summer in a fishing accident.

Ruhle’s advice yesterday came from a chorus in tight harmony.

"We’re at a fork in the road," said Brian Rothschild, a professor of Marine Science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, who serves as a connection between the congressional delegation and the state’s fishing industry. "Unless we intervene, the industry won’t achieve its objectives."

The Obama Administration has launched what is said to be the strongest attack yet by the US on Japanese lethal "scientific" whaling.

In a long-awaited detailed statement released last night, the Administration criticised the misuse of International Whaling Commission rules, and said scientific whaling undermined the global moratorium on commercial whaling.

The statement to a Congressional committee by the White House and National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration strongly defended the 23-year-old moratorium and urged disputing IWC nations to resolve their differences now.

Anchoring in deep water is a very effective way of positioning your boat over a bottom structure that holds fish.

However, if you are anchoring in more than 100 feet of water you may have to make a few modifications in your regular anchoring gear.

Most folks have a regular fluke-type anchor, several feet of chain and enough rode to play out for inshore waters. The Coast Guard recommends a ratio of 7:1 when anchoring to give close to 100 percent holding power. This is good advice when anchoring in for the night and you want to be sure your anchor will hold when you are sleeping.

This ratio would mean that if we were anchoring in 200 feet of water we would need 1,400 feet of line. In a small 23-foot boat like mine, I would have to bring along a row boat just to hold the line. For fishing you can cheat a lot and shorten the scope.

Many fishermen, including myself, still call the raincoat and pant components of our on-the-job garb "oilskins."

But at least one third-generation member of a family that manufactured and sold real oilskins in town defines what they at least were and how they evolved over the decades. Two Gloucester octogenarians further tell how oilskins were made, at the D.O. Frost Co. here.

Oilskins are "…a cotton fabric garment that boiled linseed oil has been hand brushed onto," explained Jimmy Nelson, owner of Nelson’s at 248 Main St.

Autopsy results confirmed the death of a Northern Wind Inc. fish plant worker was accidental, according to the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office.

Joseph Teixeira, 40, of New Bedford was crushed to death Monday when he was caught in an industrial ice-producing machine at Northern Wind’s seafood processing facility at 16 Hassey St. Teixeira had been employed as a maintenance supervisor for about three months.

The state medical examiner who performed the autopsy determined the cause of death was "asphyxiation by means of chest compression," said district attorney spokesman Gregg Miliote.

Massachusetts fisheries officials have closed a portion of Cape Cod to all shellfish harvesting because of red tide and higher levels of toxic algae.

The Division of Marine Fisheries announced Thursday that the toxic algae bloom has forced the closure of sections of the Nauset Marsh System in Orleans and Eastham, including Nauset Harbor, Mill Pond, Town Cove and Salt Pond.

A previous closure order for the area last month only applied to blue mussels.

The sight of the five remaining Pigeon Cove Harbor groundfish draggers resting peacefully at their moorings frequently belies their work-day realities at sea.

If these vessels could only talk!

Their captains can and three recall either their worst day or stretch at sea during the Dec. 1 through March 31 inshore fishing period between closures. All of the incidents occurred last March under good weather and sea conditions.

"I hope to catch fish and also for everything to go smoothly without any disaster," said Dusty Ketchopulos, one of the captains from Rockport, explaining what he and his peers wish every time they leave the harbor, usually before daybreak, to go out fishing on grounds within 25 miles of Cape Ann.

Petersburg fisherman Arne Fuglvog, a fisheries aide to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is an apparent finalist in the competition to head the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Fuglvog, a fifth generation fisherman who has served on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, has the endorsement of United Fishermen of Alaska, an umbrella group representing more than 30 fisheries groups active in the state.

The other apparent finalists are Brian Rothschild, a professor of marine science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, who has the backing of Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and James Balsiger, NMFS acting administrator and former head of NOAA Fisheries in Alaska.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced Thursday that he would release $53.1 million in badly-needed disaster funds to assist California and Oregon communities devastated by the second year of salmon fishery closures along the coast.

Locke said he is extending the 2008 West Coast salmon disaster declaration for California and Oregon in response to expected poor salmon returns to the Sacramento River.

“Salmon returns are expected to be near record lows again this year,” said Secretary Locke. “The extension of the disaster declaration will ensure that aid will be available to affected fisherman and their families to help offset the economic impact of the closure of the commercial fisheries.”

Locke said funds can also aid fishing-related businesses, such as ice and bait and tackle suppliers, who are struggling with the financial effects of the closure.